Communications Interoperability

I will begin by citing the closing statement of Senator John McCain during his "FLOOR SPEECH ON INTEROPERABLE COMMUNICATIONS FOR PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICIALS" on 13 September, 2005 to wit:

“I will conclude by sharing 9/11 Commission Chairman Kean’s comments as stated on CNN’s Late Edition this past Sunday, “[w]hat’s frustrating is it’s the same thing over again. I mean, how many people have to lose their lives? It’s lack of communication, our first responders not being able to talk to each other.... Basically it’s many of the things that, frankly, if some of our recommendations had been passed by the United States Congress … could have been avoided. But on the ground, the people that get there first can’t talk to each other because the radio communications don’t work. They haven’t got enough what’s called spectrum. So there is a bill in Congress to provide first responders spectrum. The bill has been sitting in Congress, nothing has been happening, and again, people on the ground -- police, fire, medical personnel – couldn’t talk to each other. That’s outrageous and it’s a scandal and I think it cost lives.” I couldn’t agree more.”

Now, even though the lack of sufficient spectrum coupled with the geographic spectrum management issues are clearly valid concerns, I’d like to point to a very different, yet equally contributing factor affecting interoperable public safety communications. I call it “the Vendor Syndrome”. As with any technology in our free enterprise, competition is spurred by a valid customer need, coupled with who can deliver the goods with requisite “bells & whistles” for a decent price. This tends to drive competition to the point where standards are implemented, but not necessarily in the same way or using the same schedule. This means that any manufacturer can claim “Standards Compliance” while remaining predominantly proprietary, thereby protecting and/or increasing their market share and unseating the competition.

Remember, open competition was the anticipated result of setting the P25 standard, with the interoperability requirement that P25-compliant equipment from any qualified manufacturer must work together seamlessly. In addition, the P25 suite of standards provides an open interface to the radio frequency (RF) subsystem to facilitate interlinking of different vendors' systems. Product options however, may sometimes dictate equipment be procured exclusively from a single manufacturer, thereby effectively limiting or eliminating interoperability. It is important to be aware of this if interoperability is important to your communications. Vendors today include Motorola, M/A-COM, EF Johnson, iCOM, Bendix King, RELM, KENWOOD, DATRON, Thales, and Vertex just to name a few.

It is important to note that P25 is not a "single standard", but really a "number of individual protocols" that can be mixed and matched. A "Project 25 compliant" system may really use only a few of the many standards. For instance, a P25 system may be conventional or trunked, use encryption or transmit in the clear, and carry voice, data, or both.

OK, I’ll end this entry, but would like to ensure that everyone understands that we must be willing to agree to disagree. Nobody has to agree with anything I’ve said, but don’t go flaming just because everyone is steadfastly standing by their solution as the greatest. I say, as long as a system meets its user requirements, then they may have a valid position from which to debate. However, wait until they bring some outside organizations into their jurisdiction and see if they can communicate with the visiting teams' portable/mobile radios. If they can’t, then there’s a problem.

Bryan